No women are allowed at upcoming Hearthstone tournament

Hearthstone is becoming one of the most popular video games for e-sports.Source: Supplied

UPDATE: In a surprising turn of events, the IeSF has now issues a statement officially opening up all the events previously designated as “men-only” to competitors of all genders.

The female exclusive tournaments will still be held as planned. The full announcement can be found here.

Good on the IeSF for being open to feedback, and taking swift action to resolve the community’s concerns!

EARLIER REPORT:

THE International e-Sports Federation’s (IeSF) 6th e-Sports World Championship will take place this November, but if you’re a woman looking to compete in Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, you’re apparently out of luck.

Hearthstone, in addition to Ultra Street Fighter 4 and Dota 2, will be open to male entrants only according to a statement on the IeSF’s Facebook page.

No women allowed

Though the South Korea-based federation has been enacting this practice for some time “...in accordance with international sports authorities, as part of our effort to promote e-Sports as a legitimate sports,” the matter was brought to light via this Reddit post yesterday morning. The post links to an info page for a qualifier event being held at the Assembly Summer 2014 event in Finland later this month, which, in line with the larger tournament to which it is attached, is a male-only affair by default.

E-sports

In a statement to PC Gamer this morning, Markus “Olodyn” Koskivirta, who is running the Finland qualifier, pointed out that all the other tournaments being run at Assembly Summer 2014 are “open to all genders,” and that “the Finnish eSports Federation is currently lobbying for the equal rights of male and female players in the IeSF tournaments,” meaning that despite hosting a qualifier for the IeSF’s event, they clearly don’t share the organisation’s approach to tournament organisation.

Scroll down the IeSF Facebook page a bit, and you’ll see their rationalisations for segregating the player-base by gender:

The IeSF’s response.Source: Supplied

While I appreciate the goal of giving strong female competitors a platform for promotion, the competitive chess example is problematic in that there is no men-only league in that game. There’s a league populated largely by men, sure, but women like Hungarian chess grand master Judit Polgar can, and do compete freely alongside their male counterparts, something a female Hearthstone player could never do in IeSF’s competition.

The road to Dota 2

In fact, another important distinction is that IeSF’s event doesn’t provide female Hearthstone players a way to compete at all, against anyone. All other competitive gaming events, such as the Evolution Championship Series, or The International, are open to both genders.

So what then is the good reason for the IeSF to exclude women from competing in Hearthstone, Dota 2, and Ultra Street Fighter 4? The answer is simple really:

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